Downshifting: Many Americans are outsourcing their own careers, choosing to get out of the rat’s maze and go their own way. Same thing in Australia in very large numbers.

But new quantitative research by The Australia Institute, obtained by The Weekend Australian, documents the shift in priorities that has driven nearly one-quarter of Australian adults to downshift in the past decade.

“It is a social force with far-reaching political implications,” conclude authors Christie Breakspear and Clive Hamilton.